New Age Dawning
by Acadjonne d'la Baie
Summary: "God only knew how the Avengers would react if the truth came out, and honestly, Trubel wasn't about to go to another mental hospital anytime soon if she had anything to say about it." Third in the Trubel as an Avenger (sorta) series.


**" _When you look into an abyss, the abyss looks into you." –Friedrich Nietzsche_**

* * *

After the incident where Trubel helped the Avengers fight the Lowen in New York, things were pretty quiet in the tower. Most days were fairly routine, especially considering Avengers Tower was home to five or six super heroes full time. Sometimes, certain events could change that routine though.

In late February, Trubel, as well as a few of the others, noticed that Steve seemed to be slipping into a sort of dark and dreary state. Despite the fact that he'd been searching for nearly a year for a missing friend, Steve usually managed to look on the bright side of things, but as March drew closer, it seemed that the light Steve usually had was fading more and more.

On the fifth of March, Steve left the tower without a word. Later on, Sam would track him down to his old neighbourhood in Brooklyn, and decided to follow after him to make sure he was okay. Steve ended up staying in Brooklyn until March 14th, and in his nine days of being there, Natasha went to visit him several times, Sam stayed with him to ensure he was okay, and Trubel even went to visit once when Pepper came around with some extra food for Sam and Steve. Once he came back to the Tower, Steve began to act like his normal self, though.

Sometime in the middle of March, Tony came up to Trubel's floor with a camera and a determined face. It was late in the evening, and Trubel had just returned from a day in town with some Panda Express take out and a new t-shirt. When he entered her living room, Trubel wondered what he was up to, but before she can ask, he speaks.

"Alright, neutral expression, look at the camera." Tony instructs her. Trubel gives him a bitchface instead, but he still snaps a picture. "Trubel, c'mon, give me a break and do what I asked."

"I don't have to do anything you tell me to." Trubel retorts.

"Fine then." Tony plops down onto a chair and proceeds to stay planted on his ass as Trubel walks into her room to drop off her t-shirt, then into the kitchen to grab a fork for her take out. As she walks back into the living room, she places her food on the table and all of a sudden it's a flash of a camera, followed by Tony getting up and dashing towards the elevator, and before Trubel can even think to react JARVIS has already closed the door behind Stark and off he goes back to the depths of the tower. Trubel just brushes it off as a lack of sleep on Tony's part and starts eating her orange chicken.

* * *

In early April, when the snow's finally gone and it's at least decently cool outside, Trubel begins making weekly excursions into town. Since she doesn't usually have money, and she refuses to take Tony's no matter how many times he tells her to just use the freaking card, Trubel usually ends up spending her time avoiding wesen, window shopping, and talking to street artists and assorted buskers. It's on one such day that she finds herself being pulled into an alleyway by a lavender-haired girl with a pencil case and a hopeful look.

At first, Trubel doesn't know what to expect, but when the young woman (who Trubel would guess was her own age) asks if she can draw on Trubel's wrist, she's slightly taken aback. Nonetheless, she decides to trust the young woman, and agrees.

The woman leads Trubel into a tattoo parlour, where a middle aged man covered from head to toe with tattoos flashes them both a smile and points them off to a small office. Once inside, the woman introduces herself.

"I'm Steffani, by the way. You can call me Steff." The girl says. Trubel nods.

"Theresa, but most people call me Trubel."

Steff spend the better part of ten minutes drawing a henna-like design on the inside of Trubel's left wrist completely in black sharpie, and then disappears for a few minutes only to return with an unopened packet of sharpies. It takes nearly a half an hour to colour in the design on Trubel's wrist, and all the while Steff is talking and bantering with Trubel. In the end, her wrist ends up looking like a beautiful flower that's just in bloom, coloured with blues and pinks and shaded green leaves, and as a final touch Steff dots gold and silver and bronze into the flower petals. By the time she's done, Trubel is contemplating actually getting the thing tattooed onto her wrist, and also kinda wants to stay a bit longer just to hang out with Steff some more. Though she does have friends in Avengers Tower, and even more in Portland, it's like a weight has been lifted off her chest to talk to someone normal, like Steff.

When she's done and getting ready to leave, pulling her leather jacket back on, Steff stops Trubel at the doorway.

"We should hang out sometime." She says, and even though she hasn't done this very much Trubel knows it's a good sign.

"Yeah. I can give you my number, if you want, then we could arrange to meet up sometime."

With that statement out in the air, Steff pulls out her phone, and Trubel does the same, both exchanging phones as they input their numbers. With a final wave, and her phone back in her hand, Trubel leaves the tattoo parlour with a new friend and some sharpie ink possibly staining her jacket sleeve.

* * *

Later on that evening, as Trubel's headed back to the Tower after eating some supper and still slurping the rest of a Sprite, she's almost mowed over by a drunkard. She's about to offer to help the guy up, but as soon as he turns his face towards her she sees that it's a seigbarste, and he sees her too. He knows she's a Grimm.

As clumsily as he stands, he still towers over Trubel, and even if it's characteristic of seigbarste this guy is fucking built. He mutters something that Trubel can't quite make out but she's pretty certain is derogatory, and he swings, and it takes all Trubel has to catch his hand inches away from her face. The guy is pretty angry now, though, and swings his other hand, and this time he manages to catch Trubel in the back of the head, slamming her forward and grabbing her by the hair. There are at least three people who've noticed, and one who's watching for sure, but no one is coming to help Trubel, and right now she can barely stand herself. The siegbarste's grip doesn't let her go, and as his other hand's now free, he brings his fist back and when it hits Trubel's pretty sure her nose might have broken. It reverberates through her skull with a sickening crack, and there's a pain in her neck now too from his solid grip. One more punch, this time dangerously close to Trubel's eye, and a second punch and a third, and then there's shouting, and all Trubel's strength is gone, and as she's let go she falls to her knees, and a man helps her to a chair at an outdoor lounge. She stays sitting for a few minutes, trying to catch herself, to balance herself out. Someone brings her water, as her soda's long gone, and she sips it thirstily. It takes nearly an hour until she feels well enough to attempt to get the rest of the way to Avengers Tower on her own.

By the time Trubel gets back, her face is both throbbing in pain and yet somehow numb, and she heads to her floor to wash her face, and after she's done that, she grabs some ice for her eye, heading upstairs, while JARVIS announces her presence to the avengers.

As soon as the elevator door opens, Trubel sees that there is only one other person on the common floor. Squinting at the clock in the corner of the room, Trubel can see why. It's almost 10 o'clock; most of the Avengers are on their own floors by now.

Trubel sits down on a sofa in the main part of the room and immediately winces. The seigbarste had punched her in the stomach, and having sat down too fast irritated the bruise. There was movement in the kitchen, and then a blonde head appeared in the doorway.

"Hey. We were wondering where you were, you got back late." Steve says, and then takes in Trubel's dishevelled appearance. "Whoa, you look like you've been through the gutter. You okay?"

Trubel knew she looked like she'd been to hell and back, but she'd had worse, and definitely would get worse again. It may have hurt, but she was used to pain.

"I'm fine, Steve. I've lived through worse." Although it was true, Trubel still felt like she was lying to Steve and to the other Avengers as well. Even though the incident with the Lowen had happened almost two months ago, Trubel still had yet to tell anyone about being a Grimm. She was tempted on a regular basis to tell them, especially since this wasn't the first time this _month_ that she'd come back looking like crap, but her resolve to keep it a secret as long as necessary held fast. God only knew how the Avengers would react if the truth came out, and honestly, Trubel wasn't about to go to another mental hospital anytime soon if she had anything to say about it.

Steve could see through the whole " _I'm fine"_ front that Trubel was putting up, though. She knew it, and Steve knew that she knew, but he didn't say anything. Just bid her goodnight and headed towards the elevator. Trubel wondered if he'd be getting any sleep tonight.

* * *

Since deciding to stay at the tower, most of the things that Trubel had kept in the back of the station wagon had been moved up to her floor at some point, either by sneaking it up at night, or just by pure coincidence of not running into anyone else on her way up at random times of the day. She didn't have as many weapons as Nick had had in the trailer, but she did have the chest of weapons from Josh's dad, and a couple of things from Nick himself, not to mention her ever-present machete.

Sometime nearing the middle of April, Clint was away, gone god knows where, and Kate decided that she wasn't going to practice in archery alone today. Having seen both Kate and Clint shoot on numerous occasions, Trubel wasn't exactly sure why they needed to practice _every single day_ , but she wasn't much better because Trubel spent about three hours a day, six days a week down in Stark's gym too, so she never said anything.

The problem was that Trubel had never used a bow, or even a crossbow for that matter, and Kate was trying to coax Trubel into doing archery, and to say Kate was a good markswoman was an understatement to say the least.

Trubel had seen the Avengers Tower shooting range before, but it had always been at a distance, never up close. The shooting range was a large room that took up about half of the floor it was on. The other half of the floor was taken up by the gym area and a locker room with a couple of showers. The inside of the shooting range was also divided into three; one area for guns, one for archery, and one for Tony's Iron Man suits. Another feature within the range was that anyone could have the option of moving targets or stationary ones. Unfortunately for Trubel, Kate decided on the moving ones.

It was like giving a child something expensive and telling them to use it in the way it was meant, but the only exception was to _not break it_. Except, of course, this was essentially what happened when Kate handed Trubel a compound bow and about two dozen arrows. Trubel's aim had never been entirely that good when it came to moving targets, and even stationary ones could usually pull one over on her. Given the fact that she'd never used a bow before, coupled with the fact that the drawing weight was close to fifty pounds, not only did Trubel barely manage to pull the damn bowstring back, but she was under so much strain that half the time she didn't even get a chance to try and aim.

It seemed like it happened in the span of a few hours at the time, but in reality it was barely a few seconds from start to finish. As Trubel struggled to keep the bow string between fingers long enough to aim properly, she caught sight of the moving target, about a dozen of Kate's arrows already stuck into it. As she let the string loose, the arrow flew, breezing past the intended target and flying further, only prohibited by the loud crash into the far wall. It was like watching a bomb going off at one hundred times slower than normal. The tip of the arrow buried itself into the cement, while the carbon shaft burst open as it hit cement, creating an effect almost like a blooming flower. Until this moment, Trubel had been at least hitting stationary targets, which would stop her arrows from going anywhere, but when the final arrow hit the concrete of Tony Stark's shooting range's wall, there was no longer the safety of the target butts to keep things intact. For Trubel, it's a distant impact sound that's like the high pitched screaming of small children followed by the yelling that's sure to be coming from Kate within the next five seconds, until the reverie of fear is broken by a friend's laughter.

"Oh man," Kate said, putting down her own bow, "I didn't remember how bad it felt to break an arrow until now." She's obviously seen Trubel's distress across the other woman's face, and Kate's soft smile is making Trubel feel at least less guilty.

"I'm not really that good at aiming." Trubel amends. "Or archery in general, if I'm being honest."

"That's fine. How about we go throw that arrow out, gather all the other ones, and you can sit the next round out?" Kate offers. Trubel doesn't hesitate to agree.

When Kate picks up the broken arrow, she shows Trubel what to do, despite both women knowing the likelihood of Trubel shooting again is slim to none. Because any and all arrows that the Hawkeye duo use are made of carbon, when they break they have to be extra cautious about it. Avoiding touching where the arrow is blooming like 4th of July fireworks, Kate picks it up and pulls the nock out with deft fingers. After putting it in a pocket on the side of her quiver, she leads Trubel to a door marked with Kate and Clint's names, setting the arrow in a bucket with other broken carbonates just behind the door. Afterwards, the girls head back for the arrowhead. It takes a few minutes to find, being stuck in the cement of the wall, but they manage, and with a pair of tweezers Kate pulls it out and studies it. She makes offhanded comments to herself, and puts it into the same pocket she left the nock in a minute ago, before going to fetch her own arrows. Trubel follows suit, pulling arrows out of the stationary targets, and once she's sure she'd got them all, drops off her quiver next to her's and Kate's bows, closing the shooting range door behind her.

* * *

About a week before her 22nd birthday, Trubel decided to go into town for the day. She'd gotten a card from Nick the day before, with a $20 gift card for a nearby Chinese takeout restaurant, and another $20 bill nestled haphazardly into the envelope. Since Hank had also left his signature on the card, Trubel assumed the $20 was from him.

When she made it downtown, Trubel decided to give a nearby mall a try. She's heard about it from Kate, who said that the shops were all pretty fantastic, but since Trubel didn't have anywhere near as much money as Kate's family did, she had always put off going in. Now, she at least had enough money for a CD or a DVD in the HMV by the northwest entrance.

Upon entering the CD shop, Trubel was overwhelmed with a sense of peace. There weren't many people inside, and those that were just stuck to their own little corners, sampling music or shuffling through stacks of CDs or slightly-obscure movies. Trubel herself headed for the punk section, taking a look out for a band she'd heard on the radio while she was still on the road. Fall Out Boy, she thought it was called, or something along those lines. She searched through the section before finally finding it, nestled in the 'Employee Picks' section at the very front of the store. There were a couple of CDs left, but all of the same album, called Save Rock And Roll, and after studying the CD for a minute or two Trubel decided to buy it. It was only eight bucks too, which was a bonus.

Trubel hung around the mall a bit longer, until her phone revealed it was nearing 4pm through a shattered screen. Checking to be sure she didn't forget her CD, Trubel headed out the door and down the streets of NYC. She decided to simply head back to Avengers Tower, electing to save the takeout card until she ran out of cash.

Along the way back, Trubel heard muffled screams in an alleyway. Deciding to check it out, she set the bag with her CD down near the entrance and stepped deeper between two buildings. In the dark corner, partly obscured by a dumpster, there was a young woman not much older than Trubel being pinned to the ground by an older man, whose head snapped back when Trubel accidentally stepped on a discarded beer can. He stared the intruder down, one hand still on the young woman's mouth and the other halfway down her pants.

"Let her go." Trubel said, clearly and firmly. It wasn't as if she didn't know what was happening. The guy simply brushed her off though, going back to undoing the unfortunate woman's pants.

Trubel wasn't about to stand by and let anything happen though, and she barrelled at the guy, punching him in the gut and kicking at his legs. The force of her managed to knock him over, and gave the other young woman the time and opportunity to escape, running away as fast as she could. The guy, meanwhile, had caught his breathe once again, and had begun to choke Trubel. As she gasped for breathe, he dragged her down to the ground, deciding that if he couldn't get the other girl, he'd at least still be able to get some from Trubel. Just before she was knocked out cold, however, another hand came in, this time in the shape of a fist which got Trubel's attacker in the back of the head and he fell forward, barely missing knocking Trubel down with him, and then the fist unclenched and a hand helped Trubel up, and _oh shit it's Steve._

"S-Steve? What are you doing here?" Trubel asked, dumbfounded. She could feel a nasty bruise forming on her neck where the guy's hands had been, and although she was used to getting attacked or attacking someone every time she left the tower, no one usually saw until hours later, or even the next day.

"I could say the same to you. I was out for a run when some woman came yelling for help, screaming about a shorthaired girl and a rapist." Steve said, and it was almost as if Trubel could physically feel the disappointment in his voice.

"I didn't plan on getting attacked when I left this morning, I swear. I just couldn't let that guy do that to the poor woman." Trubel tried to explain. Steve sighed, and placed his hand gently on Trubel's shoulder, guiding her out of the alleyway, and stopping when she made for a grab at the CD she left on the street. Once she picked it back up, Steve and Trubel walked back to Avengers Tower together, Steve giving Trubel an earful about what she did and simultaneously telling stories about when he used to get in that kind of trouble as well.

"I swear to God, Trubel, you're worse then I ever was!" He exclaims at one point, but Trubel's too busy laughing at the story of when he punched another kid in the nuts.

It takes Trubel and Steve about a half hour before they make it back to Avengers Tower. When they get back, Trubel heads up to her room first, but Steve mentions all the Avengers meeting in the common room so Trubel notes that as she opens her new CD, putting it into a stereo that had been there when she arrived, and leaving it to play as loud as it could while she jumped into the shower. After she got out, Trubel put on a simple white t-shirt and some sweats before heading upstairs.

Up in the common room, everyone sat gathered on or around couches, and even Thor and Rhodey were around. Most of them were holding bottles of beer, Kate and Clint were both wearing party hats, and there was a stack of envelopes with 'Trubel' and 'Theresa' written on them. Trubel brought her hand to her forehead in embarrassment.

"You guys all realize my birthday is only in a week, right?" Trubel asked, laughing.

"Of course we do, but just wait. You'll understand in a minute." Tony says, and stands to hand Trubel a small, blank envelope. Opening it warily, Trubel reads it out loud.

" _Theresa Rubel, it is with great pleasure that Tony Starks presents to you one round trip to Portland, Oregon, leaving from Avengers Tower on the morning of April the 27_ _th_ _, 2015, and arriving back on May the 10_ _th_ _, 2015, as a gift to you in honour of your 22_ _nd_ _birthday_." Her eyes widened. "No way."

"Yes way." Tony confirmed. It was less than a second before Trubel nearly knocked Stark over with the sheer force of launching herself onto him for a hug.

"Thank you so much!" She told him, finally letting go.

After having calmed down, Trubel opened all the other cards. There was one from almost everyone, except Clint and Kate, who doubled up, and Thor, who presented Trubel with a short sword forged in Asgard, from a metal with a name Trubel couldn't pronounce but was told was almost as strong as Steve's vibranium shield. Most of the cards had five or ten bucks in them, not too much, but Nat's was a gift card to a store where Trubel liked to look at clothes, and Rhodey's, who'd only been informed last minute of the celebration, simply said "have a good one". All in all, Trubel ended up having $30, a new sword, and a trip back to Portland more than she'd had before the night had begun, by the end of it. She may also have been a tiny bit drunk by the end of it, too, but that much was all on Tony.

* * *

On the morning of the 27th, Trubel made her way to the Tower's jet platform with her machete in her jacket and a small bag with her clothes and journal. All the other Avengers were already inside the jet.

As far as Trubel was aware, they were visiting some country called Sokovia to hunt down a guy working for a secret organisation, and Portland was just a pit stop on the way. As the jet took off, Trubel looked around at her friends.

Nick and the others already knew she was coming, and she was about ninety nine percent sure that Rosalee was going to try to at least make a birthday cake for Trubel. Not to mention Hank would probably use the excuse of a birthday to get Nick to go out and have fun. Trubel herself was just glad to be able to go back to Portland, as it almost seemed like a second home, Avengers Tower now being the first. She almost felt sad to be leaving for two weeks, but she knew that it would probably fly by in a mix of wesen drama and murder cases in Portland. As they neared the airport where Nick and Hank were sure to be waiting, Trubel turned back to everyone. Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Thor were all already suited up, while Bruce was sitting quietly, hoping the Other Guy wouldn't be needed, and Tony would only suit up just before they landed in Sokovia.

"So, I guess I'll see you guys in a few weeks." Trubel said.

"It'll be weird not having you around." Steve said. Trubel smiled.

"I'm sure the time will just fly by." With every second, they were getting closer and closer to the ground. Trubel was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Finally, the jet touched the ground, powering down, and the door opened.

"I'll see you guys in two weeks." Trubel said, shaking everybody's hands. Once goodbyes were said, Trubel walked down the ramp onto the damp ground. Turning back one last time, Trubel chuckled.

"Stay out of trouble while I'm gone, will you?"

Laughter echoed around Trubel as she walked onto the tarmac towards Portland.


End file.
